INFUZE is based in Leeds. Originally dubbed the ‘motorway city of the 70s’ Leeds City Council has now established a vision to be a city where you don’t need to own a car. Clearly such a transformation is going to pose a range of challenges.
One of our challenges is how can change to different futures be brought about? How much of this is about what individuals or households do, how much about what options are available in the local neighbourhood and how much about the city and beyond. We want to work with a range of different communities to understand how similar the visions for the future are and where will most benefit from new options.
We will have three rounds of ‘trials’ of alternative systems which will grow in size as we learn from who uses the services, how people use them and what they like and dislike. By 2027 we aim to have a major demonstration in one or two neighbourhoods in the city.
The location of all of our fieldwork will be guided by three main elements:
- The interest of the local communities to participate;
- The political support of the local ward councillors and the City Council;
- Our data analytics telling us what might work well in different areas.
Whilst our experimental work is focussed in Leeds, INFUZE is a project with national and international relevance. We are also working with Calderdale Metropolitan District and Transport for West Midlands where we will be making parallel assessments and understand the scope for the transferability of our findings.